Spotlight

THINKING PEOPLE’S
FURNITURE - PICKET&RAIL

Headquartered at Upper Thomson, Singapore, Picket&Rail is a leading
furniture retailer that has gained a good reputation in a tough market. The
company had been operating for more than a decade since its beginning in
year 2003, 13 years to be precise. FFE talks to Faisal Alsagoff, the CEO of the
company about his business and market.

City Square Mall Store

Inside the Kaki Bukit Outlet

Tagore Showroom

Serving exclusively Singapore’s retail
and commercial markets, Picket&Rail
is small medium sized furniture
retailer with strong capabilities and
big ambition. Currently, it has over 50
employees, a 100,000 square feet warehouse, and
a couple of satellite stores around the island. For
its home furniture business, Picket&Rail is proud to
have furnished more than 250,000 homes to-date.

Proud to be known as a supplier of premium
quality furniture and provider of excellent service,
Picket&Rail first made their name as supplier of
premium American-inspired solid wood furniture.
While still recognized as a supplier of fine solid wood
furniture, the store’s current portfolio of product
offering also includes modern classics - award
winning designs that have withstood the test of time.

MANAGEMENT

Faisal Alsagoff, CEO, Picke&Rail

At the helm of Picket&Rail is Faisal Alsagoff, the
company’s Chief Executive Officer. An engineer by
training, he listed an IT company he founded on
the Singapore Exchange almost 20 years ago. A newbie to the furniture business when he first took
on the role, he put himself through the paces by
visiting suppliers and factories, going down to the
shop floors serving customers to better understand
their requirements. Short of trying to make the
furniture himself, the deliberate effort to understand
the important aspects of the business paid off. It
gave him a strong appreciation of the furniture
market and retailing. Alsagoff now manages the
business with the support of a management team
to grow the Picket&Rail businesses, setting targets
and meeting them.

A mid to high-end furniture retailer, the company’s
focus is always customer-oriented. The management
studies the rapid changes in the market and needs
of customers before determining a strategy. With
a crowded mid-tier market now fill with many
retailers, Picket&Rail is constantly evolving to stay
relevant and competitive. In addition to moving
upmarket, the company has also expanded its
portfolio bringing in international brands to the local
market. Overall the various categories of furniture
products that Picket&Rail carries include traditional
“shaker-styled” solid wood furniture including beds, dining sets, wood-frame sofas, fabric sofas, leather sofas,
wooden casegoods, and accessories such as ceramic dinner
wares, bed covers/duvet, pillows, lightings, etc. They come under
the three main brands the company carries, which are: Picket&Rail
“Originals”, KUKA and Norya.

MARKETING

For its retail business, Picket&Rail’s targeted demographics are
adults between 24-65 years of age. Focus is placed on newly-weds
and new home owners. As consumers get more discerning and
better educated, this puts Picket&Rail in an advantageous position
with its offering of trendy designs and premium quality. However,
buying behavior can be erratic and differs from year to year,
according to Alsagoff. To address this, much emphasis is placed
steering its entire operations towards customer-centric orientation.
Studies are conducted with resulting strategies planned around
the needs and preferences of the customers.

As a land-scarce country, space is a precious commodity in
Singapore. Despite extensive land reclamation and having grown
some 23% since the exercise began several decades ago, the
world’s only island city-state is a mere 720 square kilometres.
The country is home to around 5.54 million people. Naturally, land
prices in this highly urbanized country are high. Thus the need for
retailers to strategise cautiously their market presence.

For Picket&Rail, the strategy is to have the right number of
showrooms, right sizes at the right locations. The store locations
would target consumers living in the North, East and West of
Singapore where population is dense. Each of its stores would
features a distinct brand focus and it is important that not all
stores are the same. The store floor areas are set up by furniture
categories to allow better focus for consumers as well as the
salesperson when they guide and assist the customers.

As a result of this, Picket&Rail has 4 main stores located across
Singapore namely Tagore, Kaki Bukit, City Square Mall & IMM Mall
with only the latter two store located in shopping malls. Not only
does each of the locations service different regions of Singapore, the
various stores each carry a distinct range of products and brands.

For example, the City Square Mall store houses the Picket&Rail
All-Wood flagship store while the Kaki Bukit location is its KUKA
Flagship Store. KUKA is a large Chinese upholstery brand currently
enjoying global success with its contemporary designs and high
quality. The Tagore showroom on the other hand serves as a
flagship store for NORYA, another large and successful Chinese
brand with minimalistic designs. The IMM shop is positioned as
a Picket&Rail mini outlet, aligned with the mall’s positioning as
Singapore’s largest outlet mall.

In addition to brick and mortar stores, Picket&Rail is also an online
store. With Alsagoff’s strong background in IT, Alsagoff capitalized
on his immense knowledge and made PicketandRail one of the
first Online-Offline (O2O) furniture companies in Singapore. To
further the company’s reach in the market, Inkagu.com, a new
e-commerce shopping platform was launched. This portal serves
customers with budget constraints.

Although recognised for its premium quality product offerings,
the company does not just rely on word-of-mouth referrals for
business. Alsagoff shared that brand building and brand exposure
is critical in the competitive landscape. In this regard the company
invests heavily in marketing, especially on the internet and social
media. Marketing promotion activities are organized regularly.
Advertisements are ran weekly and bi-weekly depending on the
campaigns. Efforts are made to ensure the content of each are
geared to strengthen the market positioning of the respective
brands and stores. In addition to promoting Picket&Rail and brands
under its umbrella, many of the advertisements are also salescentric.
His mandate to the marketing team is to be crystal-clear
with the objectives of its campaigns and they are to be reflected in
the resulting advertisements. The selection of channels and media
are on the basis that they serve the right target audience.

Sharing a little more regarding the current product styles and
design popular with his customers, Alsagoff revealed that modern
and functional designs are what draws them. In addition, there is
also a trend towards customizable designs.

SOURCING

Although maximum profit is generated with the highest selling
price against lowest costs, the Picket&Rail success formula is
providing premium quality at the right price. To achieve this, the
company sources from around the region searching for the best
products (in terms of design and quality) from the right factories. It
is not surprising to see Alsagoff leading his sourcing team on the
regular sourcing trips.

How does the company find products that are suitable and the
factories that produce them? Like most other sizeable retailers
in Singapore, the Picket&Rail sourcing team visits many of the
furniture fairs in the region, many of which are held in China, to
pre-select designs. Visits are made subsequently to the factories
identified to qualify each of them. These trips are ever so frequent
with the Picket&Rail team.

To succeed in a relatively small but highly competitive market,
Alsagoff divulge that variety in product is vital and to achieve
this, Picket&Rail has to work with suppliers who accept low
MOQ (minimum order quantity). Ideally then multiple suppliers
are located within closely proximity to one another for better
consolidation and shipping. Most importantly however, the quality
of products must be good. For new potential partner-factories, it
helps in the selection process if they enjoy a good reputation with
positive track record.

In addition to Chinese suppliers which Alsagoff credits for their
competitive pricing, diversity of product styles, reliability quality and
stock availability, the company also works with several Malaysian
factories. For the Malaysian manufacturers, their core strengths are
the solid wood products, predominantly rubber-wood, which is much
aligned with the Picket&Rail’s “All Solid Wood” branding.

OUTLOOK AND GOALS

It is Alsagoff’s long term goal to have Picket&Rail continue its
reign as the leading premium solid wood furniture retailer in the
country. While keeping at it, the company is also embarking on
an ambitious plan towards becoming a leading leather upholstery
retailer as well as a retailer of customizable furniture, both of which
Alsagoff appears highly confident of achieving. The brand is fast
gaining grounds in the former while for the latter it has rolled out
extensive programs.

Despite the slowing retail market in Singapore at present and
forseeing an inevitable price war between local retailers due to
that, Picket&Rail will persevere in its strategies and efforts. “We
will stay true to our mission. We have been keeping to our values
and working to best serve our customers. This has given us a
very good name in the market… A strong branding and superior
value impression is crucial in such a competitive market and
these help add positively to the premium quality identity the
Picket&Rail name already stands for. This will put us in a good
position against our competitors especially during tough times.”
Alsagoff emphasized.

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